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MLCSU People Services are celebrating a great Trac record

Since launch in January, 543 vacancies have been processed using Midlands and Lancashire CSU’s (MLCSU’s) new computerised recruitment system, ‘Trac’. Recruiting managers and MLCSU People Services are delighted that the first quarter’s figures confirm we are ‘on Trac’. The system is used for MLCSU’s own recruitment needs and also by many of our CCG customers.

There was lots of room for improvement with our old and clunky process which did not give a positive first impression of our organisation to potential new recruits, and potentially even putting some off from accepting an offer of employment.

In the first few months of using the new system, the Time to Hire (from vacancy authorisation to start date) target of 57 days (not including notice period) has already been surpassed with an average of 44.3 days (including notice period). We did not have access to such rich data before Trac, but an estimated average Time to Hire was 75.4 days for MLCSU and 83.7 days for our CCG customers collectively.

The recruitment team are also celebrating meeting or exceeding targets for the time taken in other aspects of the recruitment process, most notably from conditional offer to unconditional offer (15.3 days ahead of target 27.0 days).

Hayley Hoskins, Recruitment and Resourcing Manager at MLCSU said: “We are delighted that these initial reports show that so many of our targets have already been achieved, and we are now focussing our efforts on the remaining areas.”

MLCSU’s Director of People, Sarah Sheppard, is fully in support of our investment in this new system. She said: “Recruiting staff is a very costly exercise but is an essential part of any business and it pays to do it properly. An organisation may have all of the latest technology and the best physical resources, but if it does not have the right people it will struggle to achieve the results it requires.

“The Trac system is just one way in which we intend to improve the recruitment experience we provide. However, we know there is still work to be done outside of the system to solve wider recruitment issues.”

Features of Trac include a centralised system for communicating with candidates, automated chaser emails, one-click posting to NHS Jobs, centralised tracking of vacancy progress and automatic document creation. Since launch, Trac has processed 5,706 applications across 543 vacancies, with 179 offers made and 128 candidates starting in post.

Through the new system, comprehensive reporting is possible on equal opportunities, evaluating the source of applications to inform the need of any bespoke marketing campaigns, and drop-out rates to help understand where we are losing out on candidates.

Hiring managers within the CSU have commented on how quick and efficient the Trac system is, especially the shortlisting function which whilst there have been some significant changes to this functionality has improved what used to be a very time-consuming process. Trac supports hiring managers to use the key elements of the person specification when shortlisting to match up the right person with the right job skills, experience and knowledge.

Hayley added: “As with all large-scale system changes we anticipated a few teething problems in the early stages. Our team worked quickly to iron out all of the issues flagged so far, and created a FAQ sheet to help with common queries. Feedback is critical for us to ensure the system meets your needs and so we’re always keen to gain more feedback from users of the system, hiring managers and applicants.”

If you have any questions about Trac, please contact Hayley Hoskins on 01782 872696/07887 450199 or by email: hayley.hoskins@nhs.net.